When Work Gets Forgotten
by BlessItWithSparkles
Summary: What happens in the Heads' Common Room when Lily and James can't be bothered to finish their work! Written with the help of someone I was talking to on Omegle, when I have their name I'll credit them properly :) Rated T for very mild language use and a couple of innuendos but nothing too major.


The Head's Common Room was silent apart from the rustle of papers and the crackling of the dying fire. Lily was almost glad the fire was burning out; the heat in the room was almost unbearable and only made it harder to get on with her work. Her gaze slid from her work to the clock for the sixth time in ten minutes, it now read seven minutes past eleven rather than five. As her eyes returned to the prefects rotas, she allowed them to pause on the lean figure in the armchair adjacent to her sofa. He seemed to be having an equally difficult time with his work. She swallowed dryly and picked up her quill again, scratching through one of the names and rewriting it elsewhere. The room seemed far too small; Lily wondered if she and James had always been this close when they worked in here. Every time she inhaled she could smell his cologne, it should have been repugnantly strong but the scent was intoxicating and inviting. She heard his papers crinkle as he readjusted himself in the seat and caught a glimpse of muscular arms straining against his white school shirt as he stretched and mussed up his hair. A scowl flittered across her delicate features as she internally chastised herself for getting distracted from her work again and she huffed quietly.

"Like what you see, Evans?" James said, not even looking up from his parchment; even though he wasn't smiling Lily could easily make out the smirk in his voice.

The raven haired boy lowered his hand, finally looking up to catch her gaze after a while, one corner of his lips turned up, mischief dancing in his hazel eyes. Lily raised her eyebrows, taking a deep breath in an attempt keep her cool before she looked up at him

"I have absolutely no idea what you mean Potter" She replied with a voice like honey and a smile just as sweet although James' smirk only grew wider at her denial.

She held his gaze defiantly, pursing her lips ever so slightly as she did so despite the blush creeping up her neck.

"Have you finished the Quidditch practice schedule? I need it to fill in the prefect rota"

James stood to deliver his half-filled form into her outstretched hand and she once again broke their eye contact and focused on the sheet, twiddling her quill and looking between the two rotas as she filled in a couple more boxes.

"I can't seem to fit Slytherin in anywhere where they won't mess with our times" James grinned impishly, plonking himself barely a few centimetres away from her, causing her to grit her teeth in concentration and breathe through her mouth so that she didn't pass out from the heady scent of cologne

"You could stop being stubborn and move your practice to Thursday instead of Wednesday" She pointed out under her breath.

"Stubborn is my middle name, Red. Didn't you know?" He grinned, leaning in towards her to look over her shoulder at her work, his lips almost, but never quite touching her neck.

Lily's hair was standing on end and she found herself feeling incredibly warm and stifled in the small common room. James could see she was getting hot under the collar, and knew he just couldn't pass up on the opportunity.

Barely a minute of silence passed before he chimed in again, "Back to strawberry, then?"

"Strawberry what Potter?" Lily answered, dryly without lifting her gaze

"Shampoo, love. Not bad, though I think I was rather biased to the vanilla." James said, softly, so she could easily feel his breath on her skin.

Lily's cheeks were developing the blush from her neck now and she shifted slightly in her seat to reach for her ink pot which she used to replenish her quill before putting it on the table again and returning to the crinkling parchment although it was now harder than ever to remain concentrated.

"Well I'll make sure my mum sends the vanilla one next time then, I wouldn't want to disappoint when you obviously spend so long contemplating my smell"

She raised her hand to her neck and pulled her hair around to one side of her shoulder, half to protect the sensitive skin of her neck from James' tickling breath and half to tease him with another wave of strawberry. Two could play at this game. James' hand moved across her stomach, only to pick up the book lying next to her. Smirking, he withdrew, snapping it open to the bookmarked page. Although she tensed up under his ghosting movements Lily thought she was doing very well to remain collected.

"I didn't know you had an interest in Ancient Runes Potter" She teased lightly, one eyebrow cocked

"I have an interest in anything that you touch, Evans" He laughed, turning the book upside down to try and make sense out of the weird symbols. Lily rolled her work weary eyes and shook her head fondly while he tried to make out the runes.

"I swear some of these are perverted" James said, pointing to one that looked exactly like a phallus. "Not for thine precious eyes, Lily Flower"

He had given up on pursuing specifically only Lily about a year ago, but James could never pass on the opportunity to flirt with anything that had breasts and that red hair still dragged him under like an anchor on a sinking ship.

"Oh yes, because I am the picture of innocence, practically Baby Jesus himself. I've been friends with you and Black for the last four years at least, if anything has corrupted my innocence it is much more your crude jokes than this _educational_ book" Lily scoffed, laughing and prizing the book out of his hands again, snapping it shut with a dull thud and putting it on the table with the ink point and shortly followed by their half done work.

"You mean to tell me the Virginal Lily Evans can understand and appreciate crude jokes?" he asked, eyes wide in mock surprise as he put his feet up, narrowly missing the ink pot on his way.

He stretched his arms over his head, looking much like the Gryffindor lion on the posters as he showed off his tensed arm muscles. He'd once paid twelve sickles and a chocolate frog for McKinnon to tell him what Lily's favourite thing about the boy she'd fancied at the time was and the answer had been his arms, a useful nugget of information that James had never forgotten. And he was right too, Lily found herself giving him a gentle shove to knock him off balance so he had to drop his tensed arms with their delightfully rippling biceps and...shit what were they talking about again? She focused on him once more somewhere near the end of his sentence and made a face, crinkling her nose and poking out her tongue

"Of course I can understand and appreciate crude jokes; you were never that discreet anyway. By the way next time I get water for the Gryffindor table and you say 'Nice jugs Evans' the water is going over your head" She jibed.

James merely smirked, pushing himself upright once again for her benefit really.

"But they are beautiful, you gotta admit it" He shrugged, beaming from ear to ear at her although he had to admit he was slightly afraid of what she was going to do to him for that comment.

Lily merely ran her fingers back through her hair and reclined into the soft cushions of the sofa, eyes narrowed threateningly and lips drawn into a line

"Don't even start Potter I will hex you into the next world I swear on Merlin's oldest greyest y-fronts" She hissed menacingly although the glint in her eyes gave James the slightest hope that she was only joking.

"Hey at least I said they were beautiful, I could have compared them to the saggy wonder that is the chest of one Minerva McGonagall – don't look at me like that I'm going off Sirius' word. He was making a chart of all the breasts of anybody over the age of sixteen in the school and…" James trailed off; Lily was not looking any more impressed. In fact the look in her eyes was bordering on murderous. "But…..y'know…never mind maybe. It was a misguided compliment and I won't do it again…I'm sorry to all females on the behalf of Sirius Arcturus Black too"

Lily nodded curtly at his apology and allowed her stony faced expression to break once more, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips until she broke into a smile which evolved into a snigger which erupted into uncontrollable laughter. Half of the joke was the 'deer-in-headlights' expression on James' face both during her glaring and now and the other half was the thought of their Transfiguration Professor and Head of House in beige old lady undies displaying her 'saggy wonders' to the world. Once she'd sobered up enough to form proper sentences once more Lily sighed and wiped her hair back from her, now rosy, face.

"Merlin, I'll never be able to look her in the eye again. And we have to hand over the rotas tomorrow" She chuckled once more, the rotas in question lay unfinished and forgotten on the coffee table. "Is Sirius' middle name really Arcturus?" She asked, trying in vain to subdue another wave of the giggles.

James couldn't help but smile at the witch beside him, he was sure his affection for her was showing in his soppy, dopey, love-struck expression but he honestly didn't care, she was just so bloody fantastic. Godric, if Sirius could hear his thoughts he'd be teased about this for months.

"Yeah it is, shares it with little Reggie. Not that either of them are too happy to have so much in common" He laughed and threw an arm around the back of the sofa, his fingertips brushing Lily's shoulder, to his delight and surprise she shifted in slightly so the rest of his arm fell around her too.

Lily wasn't entirely sure what she was doing and even if she should be doing it because she hadn't run any of this evening's events past her official male instruction team (known to the rest of the world as Alice and Marlene) but she did know that Marlene's number one rule with boys was 'Do what makes you happy – within reason and without being a tart' and she was pretty sure she was sticking to that rule at least. James caught her attention again when he moved slightly and Lily was horribly aware that she hadn't been paying attention to what he was saying once again.

"…but Sirius will murder me and string my body up on the Whomping Willow to be destroyed if he finds out that somebody knows his middle name so we'd best keep this between us eh Evans?" He looked down at her, a cheesy grin plastered all across his face.

Lily pretended to consider it, tapping her chin with one red and gold stripy fingernail, "I suppose I might not tell him, because although I have considered killing you myself I doubt you'd be as funny once you were dead"

James' breath caught in his throat for a second and he coughed to clear it, his smile unwavering. Lily Evans had called him funny. Not for the first time but…it sounded like she meant it…and a compliment was a compliment and usually showed some sign of affection. He decided to play along and test the water as to where this was headed.

"Is that all I am to you Evans? A walking punchline. A walking punchline with good arms and a nice arse. A sexy walking punchline. That's what you all see" He cried in mock distress, flinging the arm that wasn't around her over his face and pretending to sob into it.

Lily pried at his forearm with both hands using all of her strength in some weird, almost tug-o-war like scenario until he stopped tensing and allowed it to fall away and she was left clutching his arm and laughing again. Laughing. Always laughing.

"Sexy walking punchline? Sounds about right" She replied, not noticing what she'd said until the words had already fallen from her lips.

The moment hung in the air like smoke from a cigar for a brief moment and both members of the conversation went very red without moving away from each other. The smell of cologne. The smell of strawberry which was definitely not vanilla but definitely not unpleasant. The warmth of two people blushing furiously next to each other. Finally James Potter gulped and pushed his gaping mouth into a smirk, wriggling his arm out of Lily's although he left the other around her shoulders.

"I'd call that objectification Evans" He teased, his hazel eyes alight with the reflection of the dying embers of the fire "I think I could only excuse it if you considered coming out to Hogsmeade on the next trip so I can prove to you that I am so much more than my sexiness and my punchline-ness" His tone was teasing but hushed and had an undertone of sincerity.

"As absolutely terrible and boring and horrible as that sounds I think it could be managed…I wouldn't want you to think I'm an objectifying bigot after all" Lily was still red from the roots of her hair to where the blush began to fade out again somewhere around her collarbones but her shocked and nervous expression was twisting into a smirk that could give James' a run for its money. "Oh and Potter, shut your mouth. If you looked any more like a goldfish the Giant Squid would try to eat you" She laughed and gently pressed her hand to his chin, pushing his mouth shut before 'sealing it shut' with a chaste, brushing kiss.

The old oak grandfather clock in the corner of the room chimed midnight and the slightly less flushed, but still incredibly flustered, pair drew away from each other.

With some difficulty James pushed himself off the sofa, stretched to reveal a thin strip of toned stomach (not that Lily was looking) and messed up his already birds nest-esque hair. "We'd best get going Evans, McGonners needs those schedules for tomorrow and we still haven't finished them and as ridiculous as it may sound I'd rather not be brutally killed for not fulfilling our duties now that you've finally seen the light. Meet you down here before breakfast?"

Lily arched one eyebrow as she also stood and picked up her Ancient Runes book to take up for some light reading in bed "It's a date" She confirmed with a teasing grin.

"Trust me" Countered James "That would be an insult to a James Potter date"


End file.
